Man About Canton: Hall of Famers with a Canton Connection

DID YOU KNOW …

Tom “Red” Martin, a longtime Canton resident and founder of Cramer Productions in Norwood, was recently inducted into the Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame. Martin was an All-American hockey player for Boston College and was the 1961 Walter Brown Award winner as the best player in New England and was also named assistant captain on the 1964 U.S. Olympic team. In addition to Martin, Ed “Butch” Songin was also named to the Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame. Songin was a two-time, All-American hockey defenseman at Boston College and a member of its 1949 national championship team. Songin, a Walpole native, was the quarterback for the great Canton Town Club semi-pro football team in the late 1950s, and in 1960, he went on to play quarterback for the Boston Patriots.

Talking about Walpole, the selectmen in that town recently approved a new “remote voting” policy. The policy allows members who cannot attend televised board meetings “due to extenuating circumstances such as personal illness or disability, or family emergency or significant geographic distance due to personal employment or business” to vote electronically through their cell phones, computers, or other devices.

The cost of mailing a first-class letter will increase a penny to 46 cents on January 27, 2013. The price of a postcard will increase from 32 cents to 33 cents.

The Postal Service reported a record $15.9 billion net loss for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2012. Mail volume continues to decline as Americans have increasingly turned to electronic forms of communications. However, $11.1 billion of the loss was related to two payments that the agency was supposed to make into a future retiree health benefit fund. In fact, 85 percent of the Postal Service’s financial loss is due to a 2006 congressional mandate that the Postal Service pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years and pay for it within a decade. Absent that unrealistic mandate faced by no other agency or company, the USPS (which uses no taxpayer money) has performed remarkably well in a troubled economy. From FY 2007 through FY 2010, it had a $611 million operational profit delivering mail.

According to the Canton Board of Assessors, there are 5,328 single-family homes in Canton. According to real estate researchers Zillow, Inc., 598 Canton homes (11.2 percent) have larger loans than what the homes are worth. In Brockton, more than 46 percent of homes are “under water;” in Randolph, 35.9 percent; and Holbrook, 27.5 percent. In neighboring Stoughton, there are 1,282 homes with mortgages that have larger loans than the homes are worth.

In case you missed it, Canton’s new residential tax rate has increased 3.3 percent from $11.91 to $12.30 per thousand valuation. Based on statistics from the Board of Assessors, the average single family home is assessed for $465,743, which will produce a tax bill of $5,728 per year, about $190 more in taxes than last year.

Cynthia MacDonald, daughter of Eileen MacDonald of Rubin Court in Canton and a 1979 graduate of Canton High School, was recently inducted into the Stonehill College Hall of Fame.

In Canton, 56.5 percent of voters backed the adoption of the Community Preservation Act with its accompanying 1 percent surcharge. The first $100,000 of property value is exempt. The act has now been adopted by 155 communities statewide.

Rich D’Attanasio continues to serve as the function manager at the Canton Town Club. The club, located on Bailey Street, includes a hall that holds over 200 people, a large dance floor, and a bridal room. For more information on the club, call 781-828-6897.

In 2012, there are more women than men who have driver’s licenses in the United States (approximately 106 million women compared with 104 million men).

Canton resident Dennis Camp is the superintendent of the Sharon-based Trustees of Reservations that includes the Bradley Estate and Signal Hill in Canton as well as Moose Hill Farm in Sharon, Bird Park in Walpole, Governor Hutchinson’s Field in Milton, and Ames Community Park in Easton.

Congratulations go out to Jack Norwood of Canton, who won the boys 8-9-year-old division in the NFL punt, pass, and kick team championship held at Gillette Stadium before the Patriots game against Buffalo.

The Canton Sons of the American Legion Post 24 donated over $1,000 toward a new PlayStation 2, an Apple iPad, and numbered shirts for the Power Soccer Team to the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton.

According to oil experts, although oil prices are “presently high,” prices could possibly moderate downward again. Oil heat has been a better value for 15 out of the last 20 years. Gas heat customers have to burn 1.4 times the amount of natural gas to extract the same heat value when compared to one gallon of oil.

Last week MAC wrote about Thanksgiving Day game “upsets” between the Canton High and Stoughton High football teams. Well, we can now add last week’s unbelievable, emotional, and thrilling upset win by CHS in overtime to the list of upsets in the 87-year-old rivalry. Congratulations, Canton!

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) once said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” You know, Einstein was a real genius, and he said that over 57 years ago.

This is all for now folks. See you next week.

Joe DeFelice can be reached at manaboutcanton@aol.com.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Nov 28 2012. Filed under Featured Content, Man About Canton, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.